UK Summer Festivals Soak Up Nexo Geo S12

UK rental company Sound of Music has supplied its NEXO Geo S12 for two very different major summer events, the Reading and Leeds Festivals and a classical spectacular for 30,000 in Derby.

The company worked in collaboration with rental company Entertainment Sound Specialists for the seventh year to supply systems to both BBC Introducing stages at Reading and Leeds. Each system comprised of 5x GEO S12 ground stacked elements plus two RS18 subs per side. These were all driven by NEXO NXAMP 4x4 powered digital controllers.

"We catered for 42 bands which rotated round identical setups at both sites," explains Sound of Music director Sash Pochibko. "There was always a steady audience which peaked at around 3,000 at the busiest times. Five elements per side was ample to throw to the back of the 60m deep crowd and beyond with consistent intelligibility."

By contrast, the Darley Park Summer Concert and Firework Display in Derby saw a crowd of 30,000 enjoy an evening of classical music performed by an 80 piece live orchestra and choir which accompanied the firework finale. Here, 36x GEO S12 elements were deployed in four hangs of eight, with a cluster of four front fills to cover the 120m deep by 250m wide audience area. "The event organisers could only predict the attendance for the free concert," says Pochibko. "Regardless of whether 3,000 or 30,000 people turned up, the system had to perform, and perform it did. We pre-plotted it using NEXO NS-1 simulation software and once again it did exactly what it said on the tin. A big thumbs up for the quality and coherency of the system across the whole audience area."

Now in its 10th year, Sound of Music has grown from a PA rental company servicing local music venues, universities, student union balls and cultural events into an event production specialist supplying audio-visual equipment, lighting and staging from an ever-expanding inventory. A large proportion of business is now for the corporate and conference sector.

"Even with this diverse product portfolio, deep in our hearts we look forward to the annual summer season and getting back to what we set out to do, which is to produce fantastic-sounding events," says Pochibko. "NEXO has given us the tools to do this. Our first investment was an Alpha E series system, which helped us build a solid reputation for providing great sounding, quality brand systems. We also installed an Alpha E system into Nottingham Trent University Students Union, which was a regular stop on the UK touring circuit for many years.

"As we developed into the corporate market we were looking to upgrade our core system to a compact/mid-sized line array for greater SPL control over distance with a more discreet visual presence in a conference environment, and NEXO was the obvious choice. We purchased our first batch of GEO S12 in 2006 and have not looked back since. The first time we fired it up was like watching HDTV for the first time. The detail and performance of the system is astounding, particularly when you weight up the cost against comparable systems."

The Sound of Music now boasts a hire stock of 36x GEO S12 elements with an array of hardware for deploying it in numerous configurations. The company has recently upgraded its loyal workforce of S2 sub bass enclosures with the RS18.

"GEO S12 is a truly scalable system, whether we use the system as single cabinets on tripods around a function suite for an awards dinner, or as a large-scale sound reinforcement system," concludes Pochibko. "We are still surprised at S12's versatility every time we use it."